Notwithstanding the longstanding desire for “paperless” offices, many businesses and individuals continue to rely on hard copy for information storage and transmission, where the word “copy” may include an original document. Imaging or printing devices, engines and other print mechanisms (printing devices) are widely used in conjunction with computerized word processing, accounting, and other systems to produce original hard copy for such information storage and transmission applications. Such printing engines employ various types of printing techniques, such as ink-jets or electrophotography, and are used in devices variously known as printers, plotters, copiers, fax machines, and the like, and may print on various media, such as transparencies, foil and/or common paper, any of which media may have widely varying physical and electrophotographic attributes or characteristics (characteristics). Physical characteristics of media include sheet size, weight or thickness, and surface roughness, and other characteristics relevant to printing include brightness and transparency/opacity.
Modern printing engines can produce high-quality print results, and these results can be maintained over a wide variety of media, such as foil, plastic transparencies, and plain paper having matte, gloss, or semigloss characteristics, and for various media sizes, weights, and surface roughness. In order to provide optimum printing results over a wide range of media with varying characteristics, many types of print engine adjustments can be made. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,291,829, issued Sep. 18, 2001 in the name of Allen et al. describes changing or adjusting the characteristics of the printer rendering and recording process in response to different characteristics of the print media. For rendering, Allen et al. refer to selection of tone reproduction curves, halftone and error-diffusion algorithms, color maps and gamut adjustments. For recording in an ink-jet printer context, selection of ink drop volume, number of ink drops per pixel, number of passes of the printhead over the pixel, and the order and pattern in which the drops are printed in a pixel or pixel region can be selectively adjusted. Allen et al. identify the media by using optical illumination and sensors for distinguishing among different kinds of plain papers, coated papers, photographic papers, and transparency films.
Alternative schemes for providing and identifying media characteristics to print engines for controlling printing are desired.